Sunday, 19 July 2015

For many people, the word invokes a vision similar to the
one “vampire” might invoke: violence in dark alleyways - a faceless, hulking
figure attacking a screaming young woman. A natural predator. A monster.

In a perfect world, these monsters wouldn’t exist, but this
is not a perfect world.

And so in the same way that characters in vampire stories
are reminded to carry garlic, young women are reminded not to walk alone at
night, not to venture into dangerous areas, not to wear “immodest clothing”,
and not to drink too much.

Monsters like vampires are conveniently simple to
understand. They’re evil for the sake of being evil. It’s in their nature.

When you view rapists this way, campaigns that talk about
teaching rapists not to rape rather than teaching victims not to get raped
might seem as ludicrous as a campaign teaching vampires not to drink blood.

The thing is, rapists are often not literally cold-blooded,
faceless monsters who are proudly and knowingly evil. They’re people.

When Bill Cosby raped his victims, it was not at knifepoint
in an alleyway. He was not a masked thug, easily recognizable as a “baddie”.
This is Bill Cosby, of the iconic, wholesome, family TV show we all watched.
He’s one of the most famous dads of all time.

Can any fan of his be blamed for trusting him? For being
willing to spend time alone with him? For accepting when he offered them a
drink?

Dozens of women have come forward to accuse him of rape or
sexual assault, often after drugging them, but Bill Cosby just doesn’t fit our
“faceless monster” mental image of rapist.

Perhaps this is why even now, after released court documents
have revealed that Cosby admitted to drugging women for sex, the word “rape” is
so often carefully avoided.

According to the New York Post, Cosby’s wife Camille
believes his accusers “consented” to drugs and sex. Camille is also reported to
have said, “They are making him out to be such a bad guy, a monster”.

I wonder, does Cosby see himself as a rapist? Or consider his actions “that
bad”?

In an old comedy routine he describes being a 13 year old boy who hears about
“Spanish Fly”, something you can put in a girl’s drink.

“From then on, man, every time you see a girl. ‘Wish I had
some Spanish Fly’. Go to a party, see five girls standing along. ‘Boy if I had
a whole jug of Spanish Fly, light that corner up over there. Hahahaha’.”

As the routine goes on, he describes being an adult who, with a friend, is
excited to go to on a trip to Spain,
because in Spain
they might be able to get some “Spanish Fly”. He describes this as “our
childhood dream come true”.

The joke is that they get to Spain,
prepare to ask the Spanish taxi driver about “Spanish Fly”, and he turns around
and asks them about “American fly”.

The undertones of this joke? All around the world, men and boys dream for a
drug they can just slip into a girl’s drink, and this is charmingly amusing
rather than horrifying. Boys will be boys. Ha ha.

This joke is from 1969. The earliest alleged sexual assault, in which Cosby
drugged his victim, would have happened in 1965. This means a rapist stood on
stage and joked about rape, and his audience laughed along with him. He never
had to examine his actions or see how monstrous they were, because “boys will
be boys”.

I want to talk about another rapist, one that many have found a lot easier to
see as a faceless monster.

Mukesh Singh is one of six men who took part in an infamously vicious gang rape
on a bus in India
in 2012. They not only raped Jyoti Singh, their 23 year old victim, but they
beat and penetrated her with iron rods, causing her to die of internal
injuries.

In a recent interview, Mukesh said he had no regrets about
the rape, largely because he felt Jyoti brought it upon herself.

As far as he’s concerned, and I quote, “A decent girl won’t roam about at 9
o’clock at night”. He also blames Jyoti for her death, claiming that “if she
stayed silent and didn’t put up a fight” she’d “be alive today”.

Mukesh also wondered why people are “making a fuss” about the rape, when
“everybody’s doing it”.

Apart from the fact that they’re both rapists, there’s an extremely important
similarity between Cosby and Mukesh: Both seem to view their behaviour as
normal. According to Cosby, all boys share this dream of one day obtaining some
“Spanish Fly”. According to Mukesh, “everybody’s doing it”, and really the only
person who he felt did anything bad was his victim.

This is rape culture.

This is why we need to teach boys that drugging girls is not charming and cute.
This is why we need to teach men that all women deserve respect, not just
so-called “decent” girls.

This is why we need to teach everyone that consent matters, and that having sex
with someone without their consent, whether that person is male or female,
whether you are male or female, is rape.

Rapists aren’t monsters that can be warded off by staying in at night and never
being a woman who is wearing a short skirt. They’re humans, men and women, who
often simply haven’t learned the lesson that rape is wrong, or even that what
they’re doing is rape.

And this is why, if we genuinely want to stop rape, we need to stop teaching
“don’t get raped”, and instead begin to teach “don’t rape”.

Saturday, 18 July 2015

The
summer holiday is now here and schools are shut. People will travel abroad and
some families will have visitors coming from abroad. Ladies and gentlemen I
would like to remind you of the dangers that our young girls and women will be
facing. Summer is the Female genital mutilation cutting season and we have to
be vigilant. For many families in certain communities who can afford to travel, this is when they
can go abroad, have their girls cut and join the millions of girls who are
abused through this procedure throughout the world. These are only innocent
girls who happen to have been born into families believing in archaic
traditions. We know what this can mean:

·Severe loss of
blood (haemorrhaging), sometimes leading to death

·Severe pain or
shock

·Infections

·Urine retention

·Extensive damage
of the external reproductive system

·Complications in
pregnancy and child birth

·Problems during
sexual intercourse/sexuality

·Mental health
problems/Psychological and psycho-sexual problems

·A combination of
any or all of the above

Remember, girls can be cut anywhere in the
world. They don’t have to leave these shores. It is true people do have family
visiting from abroad. Of couse, most of these visits are genuine but others may
be from excisors.

So
let’s all be vigilant this summer and look out for signs of unusual activities.
Female genital mutilation is real and people are still doing it despite all the
campaigns and the obvious dangers.

Thursday, 2 July 2015

In most cultures, getting your first period signifies the
transition from girlhood into womanhood. Other perceptions suggest this happens
when a girl loses her virginity.

Others still, will say that a woman only becomes her
full self when she gives birth.

But for the girls in Tanzania, they become a woman when
they have their genitals mutilated.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is not legal on the African
continent, so why is it still so rife? It seems that governments cannot control
what happens in many tribes, or simply turn a blind eye when this law conflicts
with cultural beliefs.

In Tanzania,
FGM is not only about FGM. Other factors come into play whenever the ceremonial
act of ‘cutting’ is performed. The following are some of the reasons why FGM
still persists:

1. Coming of age

Much like 21st birthday celebrations, the Tanzanians perform
a ceremony when a girl is of age (between 8 and 15). This annual ritual,
complete with feasting and dancing, is where children are chosen, dressed up,
anointed, given gifts, paraded and bestowed their final honour: genital
cutting.

2. Honour

It’s a rite of passage and one that girls need to pass
through to be able to be married, perform certain cultural acts and be seen as
a woman or member of their tribe.

3. Child marriage

FGM and child marriage is completely normal for many
Tanzanians, and seen as a great honour and duty. As barbaric as it is,
arrangements are made between parents and tribes as commonplace as it is
for us to wear diamond engagement rings. Parents don’t view this as a human
rights abuse, and offer their children up for the cutting because they want
them to be eligible – often at an age most Westerners aren’t even legally
allowed to consent to sex.

4. Money

Elders and those who perform the cuttings are getting paid.
Many of them have no other skills and will be out of work if FGM was stopped.

5. Oppression

Women are not seen as equals and are not sent to school.
They are forced into early child marriage, often uneducated, and many turn to
selling their bodies to earn a living and end up contracting HIV and Aids. An
uneducated life perpetuates the cycle of oppression, and generation after
generation of girls and women are lost. Being no more than tools for breeding
and service is what women and girls need.

Risks and Dangers of
FGM

Unhygienic cuttings for both girls and boys pose many risks,
including the spreading of HIV/Aids, the use of blunt unsterile
instruments which cause infection and sepsis, insufficient aftercare, and the
possibility of bleeding to death.

How this affects us

Inequality and gender based violence is a global problem. In
ending a form of abuse, in this case child abuse, there has to be awareness
first. Awareness can lead to empowering more groups to stand against any form
of gender based violence in any way that they can.

A ripple effect is moving all around the globe – one where
men and women are fighting for gender equality. From the writers trying to shed
light on the subject, to the many doctors and volunteers working FGM, we
are all part of the same army. An educated woman is a powerful tool and agent
for change in this perception worldwide. All forms of gender based violence and
oppression need to be exposed, no matter how far removed from our own lives.

Quotes

Married to a Devil

About Me

Welcome to my blog!
I hope you find it interesting. If there is nothing of interest today,please keep on checking. You may never know what tomorrow has.
I write about issues that affect women mostly in the underdeveloped parts of the world. My first book is called 'Married to a Devil'.
Don't get me wrong,I also write about men.
Buy my book 'Married To A Devil' on Amazonor buy from Chipmunkapublishing.co.uk